


i see nothing (but a thousand silhouettes)

by concertine



Series: stray italian greyhound [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials, Angst and Feels, Avocados at Law, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Law School Dorks, Matthew Murdock Is Oblivious And It Hurts My Heart, So Much Catholic Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4855298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concertine/pseuds/concertine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Fisk is like the end of a hurricane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i see nothing (but a thousand silhouettes)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shuofthewind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Price of War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3903400) by [shuofthewind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/pseuds/shuofthewind). 



> For shuofthewind, for listening to me ramble about Matt. This was meant to be Darecy fluff, but somehow Matt stole the spotlight and then Darcy wrote herself into this and stole it back using angst and bagels.
> 
> Dæmons:
> 
> Matt - Asiatic golden cat  
> Darcy - Red panda  
> Foggy - African pygmy hedgehog  
> Karen - Arctic tern
> 
> Trigger warnings for: Violence, self-loathing, flashbacks to traumatic events, some PTSD elements, the whole usual Catholic guilt Daredevil bandwagon.
> 
> Enjoy!

The aftermath of Fisk is like the end of a hurricane.

It almost reminds Matt of the time after the Chitauri invasion of 2012, during his last year of undergrad. Broken houses, boarded-up windows, _for sale/rent/lease_ signs put up overnight by people who decided they no longer wanted to live in the city after the Battle of New York.

He remembers the Columbia lockdown, alarms blaring in a way that hurt his ears, hiding in his Criminal Justice classroom with Foggy and Darcy. They’d barricaded the doors and stacked textbooks against the windows like that would keep the aliens out. The three of them had huddled in the corner while the fight raged outside, Darcy’s fingers hooked tight into Matt’s sleeve, subconsciously placing herself in front of him as Miles clung to her torso. He remembers Ari, crouched down against the wall, hissing and spitting. Her hackles up, golden fur standing straight on edge, claws digging into the wood of the bookshelf. Matt had clenched his hands around his cane, staying absolutely still, and felt like doing the same thing. Foggy’s harsh breathing was loud in his ears, accompanied by the chaos outside ( _people screaming, police sirens, shattering glass)_ and the sound of Margo’s spines sliding against each other as she curled into a ball, a symphony of fear.

He thinks maybe that’s when it started – the running, the fighting and secrets, Ari’s claws never fully sheathed. Now that Fisk is gone, he feels uneasy, prickling like Margo when she’s upset or annoyed. He keeps zoning out in the office, unable to snap back into the rhythm of things. Matt wakes every morning to an overwhelming sense of fear and his dæmon scoring lines into his bedside table. A few seconds of _Fisk Ben Elena Leland Vladimir Claire_ , and then reason kicks in and he’s left disoriented on his bed.

When Matt pads out of his bedroom, morning sunlight shafts through the apartment, illuminating motes of dust and turning Ariane’s fur into a golden blaze he will never truly see. He leans on the couch, strokes her back and thinks about Stick, about what he said when he saw the pair of them, Matt shouting and her yowling in discordant harmony with him.

“Got yourself a cat dæmon, eh, boy?” Stick had tapped Ari with his cane, hard enough that she would have hissed and scratched him if she hadn’t been sharing Matt’s agony. It wasn’t quite as strong as it would’ve been if he’d touched her full-on, but it still sent a shock through Matt. It was still enough to make him listen.

“I don’t like cats,” Stick had said, and those had been his first and last words concerning Ari. She’d settled early, in the accident when Matt lost his sight. Matt still wonders, sometimes, if Stick had thought about dæmons like he did women, or televisions, or Matt’s silk sheets. If Stick had thought they were disposable, unnecessary, a weakness.

Matt had never sensed a dæmon around Stick.

He’d never had the courage to ask why.

Every morning, Ari would nudge Matt out of his reverie, or Foggy would call with a tip-off from Brett ( _he really had to stop giving Bess cigars, seriously_ ), and then Matt would leave the apartment and head to the firm. Always just like any other day, except it wasn’t. Except now, he felt unsettled when Ari’s claws fully retracted, like there was something he was forgetting, like he still had to fight.

They weren’t hiding anymore. Fisk was behind bars. It was all over.

Wasn’t it?

Maybe Matt would always need a war, now that he had fought one and couldn’t forget it. It’s easy to notice how it had affected the others, play spot the differences (or in his case, sense) from before and after. Karen’s the most obvious – how she and her arctic tern dæmon Noah always have to be the first ones in the office, how she always makes her own coffee, the way the Mace on her keychain (he can smell the chemicals in it and it bothers him) is always within arm’s reach. Judging by the clinks Darcy’s purse emits, she’s got a taser in it, and she’s stopped wearing heels to work, as if she wants to be ready to run at any moment. Even Foggy, arguably the least bothered out of all of them – even he had rigged a bell over the front door so that it would ring when opened ( _to_ _attract our non-existent clientele_ , he’d said, but he wasn’t fooling anyone).

Moreover, Foggy always schedules his dates with Marci before dark. Matt’s amused, and then he’s concerned, and then he’s guilty. This was meant to be Matt’s fight, and his alone. He never should’ve brought his friends into this, never should’ve made them bear his scars. He never should’ve—

“Would you rather they still didn’t know?” Ari asks him quietly. She’s curled up on his desk in a ray of sunlight, and his hands stop moving across the Braille words. Ari already knows the answer, of course, but she’s trying to make him say it out loud.

He licks his lips. “No.” A quiet word, but it’s confirmation enough that Matt is selfish enough not to deny it, selfish enough to admit he’s relieved he doesn’t have to. His dæmon flicks her tail and calls him an idiot in a fond voice, and Matt’s suddenly reminded of his father’s coyote dæmon, of the mothering tone she’d used on him.

He flashes back to that dark alley, him pushing the officers aside with Ari hot on his heels, back to Jack Murdock’s broken body (Mila had long since dissipated, drifting away, but Matt took great gasping breaths of air like he could breathe her in, bring her back) on the pavement, to _Jesus, the kid’s blind_ , and _Dad, daddy,_ _no, no, no…_

Ari climbs into his lap and curls up there, warm against his belly. Matt takes a breath, and then lets it out.

“You’re here,” she reminds him quietly.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I am.”

-

Perhaps it hadn’t started during the Invasion. Perhaps it had been when he’d met Elektra a year later. Elektra Natchios and Alastair, the martial eagle that flew above them on those nights like a silent shadow. Elektra was like mica, glassy and slick, a frictionless, treacherous slope where you could break your neck. Mica, and thin ice on water: smooth, glitteringly appealing, but one wrong step and the ice closed over your head forever.

Six months. Six months of falling grades, of addiction and exhilaration, of Foggy shaking his head behind his back and Darcy clicking her back teeth together in that way she did when she didn’t know how to feel about something. Matt couldn’t see the signs, but he could hear them, Foggy’s long hair swishing as his head moved, the snap of Darcy’s jaw. It was a small stab of guilt, but it wasn’t enough. He went on. One wrong step, and that would be it. Matt almost welcomed the idea of losing, because it would mean he’d never have to be cautious again, never had to pull back his anger…

Ari dragged him back from the edge, like she’d always done. Stick had been wrong about that – she wasn’t just “a cat”. She was a wildcat, bigger and stronger and more beautiful by far. Ariane, his dæmon, his conscience, his eyes in a world on fire, she dug her teeth and unsheathed claws into his collar and tugged Matt away from the point of no return.

The day Elektra disappeared, the absence of her presence was almost a blessing. _A gift from God_ , Matt thought with shame. Taking her away to remind him of what he had almost done, what he could’ve been. Showing Matt the devil in him, warning him to tame it. He wallows and beats himself up for it until Foggy and Darcy, who’d thought he was just pining, had dragged Matt and Ari out to Josie’s to drink themselves silly. They’d gotten pretty smashed, drinking to crazier and crazier things ( _to health! To happiness! To C_ _éline Dion and summa cum laude!_ ). Foggy had tried to clap him on the back but ended up missing, and then Matt forgot to worry about it as the six of them roared with laughter, tipsy and high on life, Darcy’s weight warm against his side, Miles curled around her collarbone. It’s always a risk, touching Darcy, always the chance that it could explode into something more, something dangerous, something he can’t afford to weigh her down with. But she’d leaned into him that night, and Matt had been too drunk to remind himself not to respond.

“ _To new girlfriends!_ ” Foggy had roared, topping up his glass, and by the time the night ended, he’d been introduced to Marci Stahl and her partner, a sharp-eyed flying fox that dug pointed teeth into the maraschino cherry on Marci’s cocktail. That night had been a reminder that not all dark places were devoid of light as they staggered home, grinning, drunkenly singing renditions of Columbia school songs and tripping every few steps, the world dull-edged in a way Matt very much welcomed, a way it hadn’t been since before his accident.

- 

Darcy confronted him after Foggy did. She’d stormed into his apartment using Foggy’s key the day after Karen came, and Matt had closed his eyes and imagined her face the way Foggy had described it to him back when he’d first met her – heavy-lidded green eyes that looked blue, full lips and dark curls of hair – rather than face her, her hurt and anger and confusion, emotions shining bright through his twisted facsimile of vision. (Darcy’s passion always shone through all the obstacles in her way. She was a lot like Matt himself that way, but that just made it harder to lie to her.)

She’d stood in front of him. A beat passed while he waited for her fury, but all that happened was the heavy _thunk_ of her bag falling onto his floor, and Miles’ claws clicking a soft, nervous pattern against the hardwood.

“Jesus, Matt,” Darcy said. It was quieter and more cracked than he’d expected, but it had hurt worse somehow. “Jesus. What – what the _hell_ happened to you? You – you don’t end up looking like _this_ –” he heard the sound of her hands swishing through the air, no doubt gesturing at him – “from a car accident!”

Matt had kept his eyes closed, one hand tangled in Ari’s fur, and said nothing. He didn’t want to have to do it; it was too exhausting all of a sudden to lie to her, even for just one last time, because for heaven’s sake, this was _Darcy_ , this was (it _is_ , Matthew, it still is) the secret Matt never said, never even thought, and in that moment he would’ve done anything, absolutely anything, if it would mean not having to lie again to the person he –

“Matt.” It might have been intended to come out as a snap, but her voice broke halfway through it. “Matt. Would you – god _damn_ it, Matthew, Ariane, both of you, would you look at me?”

He opened his eyes, and there was Darcy, brilliant, beautiful Darcy, and it was like a shard of ice embedded itself in his heart and he couldn’t breathe for it, couldn’t even think, and he knew that if he spoke all his secrets would come tumbling out, even the last one, the most dangerous one, that one that had nothing at all to do with his lies, so Matt looked at her distorted, unrecognizable image and trembled with the effort of his silence.

“I know there’s something you’re not telling me,” Darcy said. “I _know_ , Matt, something’s fucked up between you and Foggy and Karen was almost in tears today because _neither of you were at work_ , and I’d think – I’d think that whatever you told Foggy you could’ve told me, y’know, because – I mean, I don’t know, I thought –”

Matt interrupted her, because Darcy was tearing herself apart and dragging him along with her, and every word made him flinch. “No, I can’t, I can’t, Darcy, there’s nothing, forget about it.” The lies tore themselves out of him, shredding his throat, pain on top of pain. He licked his lips. “Please.” 

She stared at him for a long, long moment. Matt closed his eyes again. “Please, Darcy. Please.”

“Please what?” Darcy demanded. “Please stop, Darcy, or – or please _leave_ , go back home, go away and – and pretend? I worked with Jane Foster, Matt, I can tell bullshitting when I see it. Or maybe – maybe I should stop, y’know, _loving you_ , just like you should stop being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?"

The silence hung heavy between them. Then Ariane slid down from the couch, moving stiffly but silently on the floorboards, and pressed a paw against Darcy’s bare shin. The shock went through Matt like a lightning bolt. As if from a distance, he heard Miles hiss. The moment was suspended between them, fragile as blown glass.

“Get well soon,” Darcy said, shattered and uneven. The sound of her footsteps heading away followed, and Matt looked unseeingly at the blurry movement of her shadow on the wall, without even the strength to get up and follow.

The lock clicked, and the ice shard splintered his heart open.

-

Maybe it had started the first time he’d come face-to-face with Wilson Fisk, when Vanessa Marianna and her beautiful ermine dæmon (he could tell by the thickness of the fur, the way it had coiled around her neck) had been showing him around the gallery. A hulking man with some kind of bird of prey perched on his shoulder. They’d shaken hands.

“This is Leila,” said Fisk. “She’s a northern goshawk.” Matt had inclined his head to the vague area around Fisk’s head, but he hadn’t noticed much about Leila. His heart had been too busy pounding a drumbeat of _rage-rage-hate_.

He’d remember Fisk’s dæmon later, when she was trying to peck out Ari’s eyes, but cats, Matt had thought as he’d thrown Fisk down onto the pavement, would always have the edge over birds. Matt’s beautiful dæmon clamped her teeth around one of Leila’s wings and didn’t let go. He’ll never forget the way Wilson Fisk roared.

-

 _Bless me, Father, for I have sinned_.

Matt could go to confession. He could have a discussion with Father Lantom over coffee – _pros and cons of not telling your best friends that you’re a vigilante who’s not actually technically blind_ , or maybe _I dragged my friends into my mess, I don’t deserve them, how can I ever deserve them, they bear scars that should be mine and oh god, oh god, what have_ _I done_ – and tell him everything that had happened since the arrest of Fisk, since Daredevil’s existence had been announced in the paper. He could be washed clean. He could go into the office the next day with a free conscience, a new slate. But what would he see?

A twitchy Karen fingering an invisible mark on her throat. Foggy eyeing the door, not to watch for clients but for enemies. Miles pacing and Darcy avoiding his gaze, both of them ignoring the elephant in the room, the naked secrets wrenched open, spilling their contents on the floor like blood. The graves of Ben Urich and Elena Cardenas are slotted behind his eyelids. Matt didn’t kill those people, but their blood is on his hands. He’d sit down at his desk and pretend to be as blind as Foggy once thought he was, pretend to still see nothing. Maybe he’d file some paperwork, or reread that article published in the newspaper last week, the one they’d since tacked onto the wall. **_NELSON, MURDOCK AND LEWIS_** _,_ the headline read. It was an article full of praises and glowing comments. Hell’s Kitchen’s golden children, eschewing money and a career at Landman and Zack in favour of helping the helpless.

Yeah, Matt helps all the time. Every night, in fact. He goes out and beats people up so that when he returns to the daylight, the law is actually helping instead of hindering. The thing is, when you’re poor, you’re pretty much helpless yourself.

He could be absolved. But should he be?

-

Matt tells Darcy all of his secrets on a rainy day, the sound of the water against his windows like gunshots, and she punches him, hard. He staggers a little – he’d felt it coming, but avoidance or resistance hadn’t been options – but Darcy just keeps coming.

“How _dare_ you think you didn’t deserve me, how dare you think you get to make my decisions for me, you do, dumbass, you absolutely do deserve me, get rid of this Catholic guilt thing _right now_ and how dare you lie to me, for _years_ , Matthew, years, and just now I find that you’re not actually fucking blind? Were you ever going to tell me, because Karen’s figured it out, I know she has, she’s every bit as smart as you or me or Foggy, and if she isn’t running out of the office screaming bloody murder why the _hell_ would you think I would?” Darcy’s breathing hard, Miles is snapping his teeth, and both of them, the girl he loves and her red panda dæmon, they’re soft on the outside but with a core of steel, unyielding under even the greatest pressure.

“I just –” Darcy breaks off, and Miles launches himself at Matt, twisting around his shoulders, and if Ari touching Darcy was a lightning bolt, then this is a blazing thunderstorm, sparks igniting beneath his skin and scalp, taking his breath away.

“Yeah,” Matt says, hoarse. “Yeah, I think that about covers it.”

"Shut up,” Darcy replies. She kisses him, and it feels like being reborn.

-

The aftermath of Fisk is like the end of a hurricane. It’s put shadows under Karen’s eyes that shouldn’t be there, it’s stripped Foggy of the remains of his childhood, and it’s given Matt a brand new scar across his abdomen, one he’d gotten in a dank dark warehouse when Nobu had said to him, _it is an honour to take your life._

Fisk wasn’t the disaster. He was never the storm. Wilson Fisk had been the butterfly who dared to flap his wings, so infinitely weak, but by pure chance he’d been given the ability to affect things far greater than himself.

Matt was the hurricane. Nelson, Murdock and Lewis is, on a microscopic level, the entire city. So many wrongs that will never quite go away, that started not on any event of Matt’s life, but on the day Fisk killed his father, the day Karen found out too much and was framed for murder, the day James Wesley stepped into their shitty little firm and offered them a job.

Their firm is the eye of the storm. Daredevil had come and swept it all away. A forest fire, a meteor. There had been destruction, but New York would always rebuild, like it had countless times in the past. 

He remembers the day after the Battle. Eight in the morning at Columbia University. Class had been canceled for the day. Matt had walked out of school grounds, dazed, and seen amid the wreckage a team of workers building it all up again.

-

There is a crooked black line on 114th, where new asphalt had been poured to patch up a huge crack in the road left over from the attack. Everyone saw it; it would never go away, at least not in Matt’s lifetime. But the only ones it bothered were those who let it bother them, those who had packed up overnight and left. Those people had chosen to bury the city in its own ashes.

(Ari’s claws are, as always, halfway extended.)

Matt chooses to let it grow.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be like 1000-something words, and then it went and doubled itself because Darecy is a ship made of uncooperative little fluffballs.
> 
> Title from "Silhouettes" by Of Monsters and Men.


End file.
